Iole: Silva-Jones could be Mayweather-Pacquiao
In the cage after knocking Stephan Bonnar out with a knee to the solar plexus, UFC Middleweight champion Anderson Silva doused…
In the cage after knocking Stephan Bonnar out with a knee to the solar plexus, UFC Middleweight champion Anderson Silva doused ice water on the building momentum for a fight with UFC Light Heavyweight champion Jon Jones.
“No,” he said, “I am not going to fight at 205 again.”
With one short sentence, Anderson Silva provided UFC president Dana White with his biggest headache since White was tasked with finding a way out of a $44 million hole in 2005.
How could anyone care whether Silva fights welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre when Silva is so obviously running from light heavyweight champion Jon Jones?
Silva has never said directly why he won’t fight Jones, though it’s apparently some bizarre ethos about not wanting to get in the way of a shot for one of his teammates.
Silva isn’t afraid of Jones; no elite fighter is afraid of another man. It’s sure the perception that Silva is creating, however, and that diminishes his legacy.
A Jones-Silva superfight would be the richest MMA fight ever, as well as a bout matching the two greatest fighters in the world, and perhaps in the sport’s history.
One of White’s strong suits is putting together the fights the fans want to see, though he doesn’t have a perfect record in achieving it. He was unable to sign Fedor Emelianenko, which meant he wasn’t able to make Emelianenko against either Randy Couture or Brock Lesnar. Both were fights the public was desperate to see.
White needs to get on it, and fast, and make Silva-Jones happen.
The worst thing that could happen to the UFC would be for the fan base to begin using those two awful words when debating whether Jones and Silva will ever fight:
Mayweather-Pacquiao.